San Jose State: The athletic director search (UPDATED)

*** SUNDAY, 8:30 p.m. update: Bleymaier will interview with the search committee on Monday, according to multiple sources. Said one: “At this point, he’s the only candidate. If it doesn’t work, they’ll have to go to a Plan B.”

*** Before we get to the search, one lingering thought on the Mountain West:

I couldn’t help but notice that MWC commissioner Craig Thompson, when asked what Utah State brought to the table, went to great lengths to praise USU’s leadership. But when asked the same question about SJSU, Thompson talked about it being a dynamic, growing university.

And could you blame Thompson for not waxing poetic about the school’s leadership? SJSU has change presidents every 12-18 months the past few years. (The current boss, Mo Qayoumi, was out of town when Thompson made an important campus tour earlier this spring.)

In addition, athletic director Tom Bowen, who led a year-long push for entry into the MWC, took the Memphis job in mid-April.

So in a sense, the Spartans were very lucky to receive the invite — far luckier, from a leadership standpoint, than Utah State.

Thoughts on the AD search // …

Now that the Spartans have secured a spot in the Mountain West, the focus turns to finding a replacement for Memphis-bound athletic director Tom Bowen.

I expect the search to heat up next month, and to potentially last several months.

One reason for the delay is that Cedric Dempsey, the former NCAA president who consults with the CSU and UC on executive searches, is working with UC Davis to fill its AD vacancy. That’s supposed to reach a conclusion in early June, at which point, sources said, Dempsey will turn full attention to SJSU.

I have no doubt that numerous names will surface over the coming weeks and months — one potential candidate is CSU Monterey Bay’s Vince Otoupal — but for the purposes of this post the focus will be on two potential candidates. (At this point, before the vetting and interview process, everyone is a potential candidate):

Marie Tuite, the Spartans’ interim AD, and Gene Bleymaier, the former Boise State AD.

Multiple sources have told me that Bleymaier has strong interest in the vacancy and is being supported in his push by Dick Vermeil, a Spartan alum whose relationship with Bleymaier dates back decades (Bleymaier played tight end for Vermeil at UCLA in the mid-1970s).

From the football perspective, Bleymaier is an incredibly strong candidate: He built Boise State into a powerhouse. Then again, Boise State and San Jose State have far more differences than similarities. (Among those differences: the 49ers, Raiders, Giants, A’s, Warriors, Sharks, Cal and Stanford.) Could Bleymaier be successful at SJSU? Sure, but he’d have to take a different approach with football.

Bleymaier also comes with baggage: He was let go by Boise State following revelations of NCAA violations in multiple sports over multiple years. The Broncos “failed to establish an adequate compliance system,” according to the NCAA.

That’s a very serious charge. It happened on Bleymaier’s watch, and president Bob Kustra apparently believed Bleymaier was responsible: “I determined that new leadership will be needed as we commit ourselves to the highest level of attention and enforcement of NCAA standards,” Kustra said.

Football success is the key to Spartan athletics — the Spartans couldn’t do any better than Bleymaier from that perspective. But the school, and by extension the CSU leadership, must be willing to reconcile his strengths with his baggage.

Tuite, meanwhile, has taken over for Bowen and done a marvelous job, by all accounts — in particular her handling the MWC entrance process with the help of deputy AD John Poch.

She understands SJSU’s complex, difficult existence as an urban school in a pro sports market in a state system that has endless layers of bureaucracy and enormous budget problems.

And, according to a source, Tuite has the support of football coach Mike MacIntyre.

Again: Other candidates will no doubt surface over the coming weeks, SJSU may determine that Bleymaier merits serious consideration, and it’s difficult to know if Tuite fits the AD model that Qayoumi (with Dempsey’s help) has in mind.

The compliance issue is something that Bleymeier will have to explain thoroughly. One of the most notable violations uncovered by the NCAA was that their women’s tennis coach had played multiple ineligible athletes in varsity tennis matches (IIRC, at least one was a player who had used up all of her eligibility, and another was not yet enrolled at BSU when she first played varsity tennis.) That is unbelievably shoddy compliance work by the athletic department. There were a lot of other minor violations, such as athletes getting housing or meals paid for that technically they should not have received, and any one of those violations might be ticky-tack, but because there were so many, it looks like no one was minding the store. That’s a huge problem for an athletic director at a high-profile Division I school.

Heard Marie Tuite has pulled her name from the AD search at San Jose State…Could mean a new AD to be named soon…

Nordo

After climbing out of the APR hole, why would SJSU risk getting into trouble with the NCAA by hiring Bleymeier? And what makes anyone think Bleymeier will be able to duplicate rural Boise in urban San Jose?

Marinbear

CSU Monterey Bay? Do they have an athletic department?

dudley degroot

Most SJSU alum’s are complete homers. You want to win and go to the next level?

Take a chance for once and hire BLEYMAIER.

Leftcoast

One of SJSU’s past issues has been taking unnecessary chances that DON’T payoff. The sad part about swinging for the fences is that 3 times out of 4 you strike out. I’d like to see the Spartans get a proven coomodity that DOESN’T come with baggage. Bowen, the best Spartan AD of the past 30 years, was a solid choice not a 25% grand slam-or-bust chance.

jack

Bleymaier should be a no brainer for SJS… He will take them to the next level.

TommyCoug

Played for Dick Vermeil (SJSU Alum) or not…the folks at Boise State and around Boise lable this guy “an arrogant, narcisstic, ego maniac jerk.”

Remember “HE’S” the one that got the BSU folks in trouble and the president had to pull the Athletic Department into his office!!

He’ll take you somewhere all right, Jack. Most likely where you hadn’t planned on going!!

MostWanted

If TC is against it, it must be a good thing for SJSU. Also I’ve changed my official position in favor of Bleymeier. SJSU needs a guy like this for football scheduling and corporate sponsorships. The sky is the limit and SJSU should shoot for the stars.

Leftcoast

Sigh …. I’m a Stanford fan who enjoys Spartan football and with a son headed your direction. This desire to abandon the steady (and successful) rise of the past few years to swing for the fences with a guy with this past just has me shaking my head.

Reminds me of FSU hiring Tarkanian and ignoring his troubled past. Yup, he won a few but left nothing behind when he left and created teams that few could root for. I’d make sure Bleymeier isn’t the next version of Tark the Shark before jumping on his bandwagon.

You can read and see it for yourself…you have been warned…do with it as you and SJSU wish. It’s your or their call not mine!!

GO COUGS!!

Poche

I want to win. Hire Gene!

Jack

TommyCoug,

You don’t know WTH you’re talking about.

TommyCoug

Jack…one things is certain…I have “no first hand knowledge of this guy”…I am repeating from solid sources in Boise…there you have it…nonpartisan…but, not what you want to hear or believe…however, the decision won’t affect me one way or the other…you and SJSU, on the other hand, are a different situation.

Markd

Any update Jon? An email was sent out about a major announcement tomorrow. I bet it is to announce the new A.D.

Spartacusminimus

Let’s place bets: NCAA sanctions by…… 2015? Let’s wait and see. We just recovered from Tomey’s sins. Now after interviewing …one … we hired an unemployed AD with a black NCAA cloud floating above his head. Yeaaah. Did he actually put blue turf on his CV? Blue Turf is stupid. Something tells me he would have accepted the job with 2/3 pay. But he apparently has friends “inside”. I don’t want the Spartans to play with +-65 scholarships again, but I think it’s just a matter of time. Couldn’t just one more candidate have been interviewed? What the hell?

Leftcoast

Yup …. But what’s done is done. Time to hope the man learned and wish him luck. I’d like to see the Spartans prosper.

(But if I’m President Qayoumi I make darn sure San Jose beefs up their compliance team! I’d hate to explain how it happened HERE when you know the history.)